![]() Without it, there would be a willy-nilly embrace of endless possibility. The Cold War, after all, had provided not just an ideological lens for citizens and their leaders, but also a secure intellectual framework and a transparent screen through which to understand and reimagine culture. “Without the Cold War,” wondered John Updike’s character Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom as the “long-twilight struggle” between capitalism and communism was winding down, “what’s the point of being an American?” But lurking in the world’s collective subconscious was an abiding uncertainty about the shape of things to come. ![]() ![]() NEW YORK/VIENNA – When the post-Cold War world was still in its infancy, there was a palpable sense of excitement about history’s potential end. Louis Menand, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021, 4th Estate, 2021.īen Rhodes, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, Random House, 2021. ![]()
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